To want to reduce contact with religious zealot in-law?

[ZOhZee]

I've been married 15 years and known my in laws for longer. I'm an agnostic. DH is even stronger into the atheist camp. Religion isn't something that our household focuses on.. it's akin to saying something about cricket if we don't follow it.. not a controversial topic, just irrelevant.

A certain in law has become extremely religious during the pandemic, to the point I'm not comfortable, especially exposing our DC to them. Everything conversation wise gets routed to religion (a pure Christian firm, very orthodox, questioning evidence of science, medicine etc, world isn't more than a few thousand years old theories etc).

I'm concerned at the constant turning of every day topics into religious debate when we visit for care during lockdown, to help them in elderly care matters. I swear if I said it might rain I'll get "god willing" in response. Or if I say the carrots look nicely cooked I'll get "thanks to the lord" ... Everything is turned to scripture, and I didn't sign up to this type of family dynamic. DH thinks it's harmless batshit from a family member who's going a bit odd, I think it's frustrating and bizarre and actually harmful for every single innocent conversation to turn into science Vs religious debate (I, so far. Simply change the subject and ignore, I will not debate).

Aibu to want to reduce contact with this relative / in-law, despite DH thinking it harmless, because of DC..?

(DC do not really know what religion is at 2 but I'm worried they'll pick up distrust of doctors etc)

I don't think it is harmless. My friend had a relative who invited me to be a facebook friend and I accepted. Then everyday he posted completely ott religious things and then he disappeared from fb. I asked my real life friend about it and he'd had some kind of mental breakdown and was now in hospital, turned out he'd managed to befriend 400 people and one of his relatives realised and got him help.
It would be worth getting him assessed. There's nothing wrong with religion per se but it seems a bit obsessional.

Let the stupid old bastard's new imaginary friend look after him. After all, if he deteriorates it must be God's will.

Fwiw God loves everyone.

Those who preach hellfire and damnation put people off Christianity. They do it out of love and well meaning but its counterproductive.

@ZenNudist

Fwiw God loves everyone.

Those who preach hellfire and damnation put people off Christianity. They do it out of love and well meaning but its counterproductive.

Those who preachers hellfile and dam damnation do it out of arrogance and sometimes hate.

I've had a word with DH who agrees it's a very frightening personality change. We've started to look at how it could be fed to the GP for them to consider - I wouldn't have thought they could talk with us or even confirm if a patient is registered obviously due to medical data privacy issues?? But if I drop in a letter or email and frame it as, we are concerned, surely they can't just ignore it? Does anyone know what wording I should use, as in, when they do regular medical check-ups if there is something which they can slyly check re: dementia? Unofficially i.e. not asked for by the patient?

DH said himself it's like a personality change, those were his own words, so I 100% Don't believe it's just my (unsolicited) opinion.

Thing is, if it's not dementia, I still don't want DC being told of burning in hell for all eternity when I start a Normal conversation. To the posters asking, no, it's not possible to hold a normal conversation without it turning to the Bible etc. My carrots example was real. Another one was I was asking if the neighbour's pet is still being walked in the nearby park (it's had its main gate blocked off to sort a drainage issue, longer walk to the back to get in), even that question promoted a response about how she isn't a "true" believer because she's Catholic. This is a neighbour that has been friendly for years, literally 20 plus years!! The answer was something like "I don't know where she's going every day for the walk, but I do know she's going to hell in the end no matter what she does", which was when the burning in hell stuff came up again in front of DC. I cannot handle this long term. Avoiding and ignoring it isn't something I am willing to do, and I cannot leave 2 yr old dc alone when we visit (I drive, DH does not, and so we all go to visit together). DH does the actual cleaning and I normally go shopping to top up food etc if needed.

Also:
I don't know the exact church name, it's a cut off from the church. I don't have any reason to think it's non legit, I've heard of it and know it has a reputation for doing good work e.g. sponsoring stuff in Africa, sending groups to communities there to help build stuff and raise funds to pay for medical care. So i think it's legit but independent.

I think that you would be reasonable to reduce contact. And I am religious. I don't even want Boris Johnson to burn in hell, and he has by inaction caused thousands of deaths.

When my Nan developed what turned out to be psychosis & dementia (not saying your FIL has that!!) I phoned the GP surgery & asked a GP who knew her to visit. I obviously told him what she was like.
So he phoned her & said he was coming to do a routine blood test as she hadn't attended the surgery for a long time, she agreed & he was able to spend the appointment in her flat talking to her & assessing her.

For confidentiality reasons he couldn't tell us his exact diagnosis but basically he called the local elderly person's psychiatrist & she was eventually sectioned for her own safety.

@Warpdrive

It sounds to me like you are feeling really threatened by it but yet nothing you describe actually seems threatening, but totally harmless.

I suspect you have an issue with his religion. If he'd become a zealot for something else, say healthy living - eating nothing but raw food and exercising obsessively - would you have as strong a reaction?

Anyone who is quite evangelical about a subject (be it religion, veganism or their political views) is usually boring and I have better things to do than sit around and listen to them pontificate.

With all of these threats of going to hell, I was reminded of this Blackadder episode. It's not so bad!

Seriously though, it seems to me that he's responded to the loneliness of lockdown by finding religion and (as many new believers do) taken it to extremes. I'd look into professional help but I wouldn't keep your son away entirely, just make sure that contact is supervised.

The sudden, disturbing personality change does call for further investigation, but it's not uncommon for recent converts to become zealots like this. My aunt did much the same (and she certainly didn't have dementia). I was always fond of her: she was a warm, funny and loving person but I have to say that once she met her second husband and they both underwent a conversion they both became insufferable. It was so irredeemably boring. God, God, God, every second word: no matter what the topic of conversation, it would eventually come around to God. Even my mum, who had patience and tolerance in spades, ending up avoiding her. If you become a zealot, unfortunately that's the risk you take.

It's all very well to respect others' religions. I have friends who are Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, pagan, Christian and love hearing about all their different festivals and joining in their traditions. I was myself raised as High Anglican and was a church-goer as an adult (a very private, not in-your-face one), although becoming increasingly pagan as I grow older.

It's not bigoted not to want God dinged in your earhole morning, noon and night. As for having your kids have the fear of [God] put into them through constantly hearing lunatic theories about anti-vax, anti-science, evolution being BS, etc, I would not want mine exposed to this kind of damaging nonsense.

I disagree with the observations upthread that this isn't a problem.

Sorry meant to say that you could therefore explain to your FILs GP surgery that you feel the GP needs to assess him & then leave it up to them to arrange a visit.

It could of course just be that he's very suddenly turned into a proselytising born again Christian straight out of the blue but it's an unusual change for a man in his 70s...
having said that my Dad is at home on his own watching YouTube videos all day (aged 72) luckily he's very mentally stable but even he has disappeared down some 'rabbit holes'...
not hard to see how a man with nothing else to do all day who may be a bit mentally frail & more open to new ideas could come unstuck with religious theories & conspiracies when online.

I respect & know a lot of religious people but your FIL does sound over the top to the point of extreme, whether or not he's mentally ill.